AP (“McConnell will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November after a record run in the job“):
Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate leader in history who maintained his power in the face of dramatic convulsions in the Republican Party for almost two decades, will step down from that position in November.
McConnell, who turned 82 last week, announced his decision Wednesday in the well of the Senate, a place where he looked in awe from its back benches in 1985 when he arrived and where he grew increasingly comfortable in the front row seat afforded the party leaders.
“One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter,” he said. “So I stand before you today … to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”
His decision punctuates a powerful ideological transition underway in the Republican Party, from Ronald Reagan’s brand of traditional conservatism and strong international alliances, to the fiery, often isolationist populism of former President Donald Trump.
McConnell said he plans to serve out his Senate term, which ends in January 2027, “albeit from a different seat in the chamber.”
His voice cracked with emotion as he looked back on his career and said it was time for a new generation of leaders. Dozens of members of his staff lined up behind him on the back wall of the chamber, some wiping away tears, as family and friends looked down from the gallery above. Senators from both parties — most of them taken by surprise by the announcement — trickled into the chamber as he spoke and shook his hand after he finished.
Aides said McConnell’s announcement was unrelated to his health. The Kentucky senator had a concussion from a fall last year and two public episodes where his face briefly froze while he was speaking.
“As I have been thinking about when I would deliver some news to the Senate, I always imagined a moment when I had total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work,” McConnell said. “A moment when I am certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believe. It arrived today.”
The senator had been under increasing pressure from the restive, and at times hostile wing of his party that has aligned firmly with Trump. The two have been estranged since December 2020, when McConnell refused to abide Trump’s lie that the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president was the product of fraud.
But while McConnell’s critics within the GOP conference had grown louder, their numbers had not grown appreciably larger, a marker of McConnell’s strategic and tactical skill and his ability to understand the needs of his fellow Republican senators.
McConnell gave no specific reason for the timing of his decision, which he has been contemplating for months, but he cited the recent death of his wife’s youngest sister as a moment that prompted introspection. “The end of my contributions are closer than I’d prefer,” McConnell said.
But his remarks were also light at times as he talked about the arc of his Senate career.
He noted that when he arrived in the Senate, “I was just happy if anybody remembered my name.” During his campaign in 1984, when Reagan was visiting Kentucky, the president called him “Mitch O’Donnell.”
McConnell endorsed Reagan’s view of America’s role in the world and the senator has persisted in face of opposition, including from Trump, that Congress should include a foreign assistance package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine.
“I am unconflicted about the good within our country and the irreplaceable role we play as the leader of the free world,” McConnell said.
Against long odds he managed to secure 22 Republican votes for the package now being considered by the House.
“Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular moment in time. I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them,” McConnell said. “That said, I believe more strongly than ever that America’s global leadership is essential to preserving the shining city on a hill that Ronald Reagan discussed. For as long as I am drawing breath on this earth I will defend American exceptionalism.”
WaPo (“McConnell to step down from Senate leadership in November“) adds:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) plans to step down from his leadership position in November, he announced Wednesday, a move that would mark the end of his tenure as the longest-serving Senate leader in American history.
The announcement marks the beginning of the end of an era in American politics. McConnell has been a towering force over his decades in the Senate, enraging Democrats by reshaping the federal judiciary and later serving as an occasional voice of rebuke to former president Donald Trump, who he excoriated publicly for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
[…]
McConnell recounted the beginning of his congressional career in 1984, at age 42, during the Reagan administration.
“If you would have told me 40 years later that I would stand before you as the longest-serving Senate leaderin American history, frankly, I would have thought you’d lost your mind,” he said.
He was an incredibly effective leader, even when I strongly disagreed with his approach—as in the refusal to allow President Obama to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But, at 82 and with his health visibility worsening, it was well past time for him to step down.
While I suspect few OTB commentators will miss him, his replacement will almost inevitably be worse.
